Fewer Inspections for Low Risk Industries
Apr 28, 2011
The government has formalised proposals for reducing the number and targeting the focus of health & safety inspections, and also undertaking further scrutiny of existing legislation. The “Good Health & Safety, Good for Everyone” document launched in March sets out plans to accommodate the 35% cut in the Health & Safety Executive’s budget by 2014.
There is to be a focus on comparatively high risk areas such as construction, waste and recycling and high risk manufacturing. Lower risk sectors such as light engineering, textiles and transport are to be set free of unwarranted scrutiny as there will be a 35% reduction (approximately 11,000) in HSE inspections per year. The government hopes to remove unnecessary burdens on businesses and to simplify regulation through the provision of “Health & Safety Made Simple” guidance, freely available on the HSE’s website. This sounds like good news for everyone, provided these “low risk” businesses are complying with the law and actually are low risk.
Following on from Lord Young’s report last year, there are further plans to review health & safety laws starting in the next few weeks. Lord Young proposed that all regulations should be consolidated into a single volume. This proposal has raised some concerns already amongst health & safety professionals. Mark Dalton, Associate Director, Wilby Risk Management comments “Having specific sets of regulations covering specific risk areas allows clear and detailed responsibilities to be spelled out. You know exactly where to go to find out what the law requires regarding work at height, construction issues or personal protective equipment. I can see little value in combining the existing documents into a “one size fits all” set of regulations.
We will all have to wait and see how these proposed changes affect employers and employees over the coming months during these challenging times.
